


We've All Got Monsters

by forgivenessishardforus



Series: Post-season 3 [2]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: F/M, First Kiss, POV Bellamy, Post-Season/Series 03, dialogue prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-17
Updated: 2016-07-17
Packaged: 2018-07-24 12:38:57
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,034
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7508574
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/forgivenessishardforus/pseuds/forgivenessishardforus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He loves her, and his love for her is like a banked fire, a warm coal buried just beneath his heart.<br/>She loves him, but her love for him is like a dagger between her ribs, one that twists with every breath.</p>
            </blockquote>





	We've All Got Monsters

**Author's Note:**

> From a dialogue prompt: "Don't look at me like that. It's not my fault." + "I shouldn't be in love with you." 
> 
> Same 'verse as "Can't Let You Go," because why not.

The first time she tells him she loves him, it happens like this:

“I shouldn’t be in love with you,” she whispers, her words soft and shivering as they slice into his skin. They stay there, stuck just below the surface, sharp as swords. “I can’t let myself be in love with you. I’m sorry, Bellamy.”

She slips out of his quarters before he can respond but her words don’t go with her; they stay buried in his skin, pricking with every breath.

When the door closes behind her, the latch clicks into place with the sound of the safety being taken off a gun that’s pointed directly at his heart. Within him, shadows start licking up his ribcage and crawling towards his heart, the way they always do when she’s not around to keep them at bay.

It’s not about him. He knows this, he _knows_ ; it’s about the title _Wanheda_ that she wraps around herself like a cloak, the death that she feels she carries in her fingertips, tainting everything she touches. It’s about the ones she’s lost, and the ones she’s afraid of losing.

He loves her, and his love for her is like a banked fire, a warm coal buried just beneath his heart.

She loves him, but her love for him is like a dagger between her ribs, one that twists with every breath.

So he doesn’t go after her when she runs. Even though it leaves him feeling dark and empty, even though watching her walk away reminds him of the time she’d left and hadn’t come back, even though her absence allows his monsters to come out of their cages, scratch their way up his bones and squeeze the air from his lungs.

If she needs time, he’ll give that to her. He’ll give her whatever it is she needs.

For days, she avoids him and he’s filled with a stifling, icy cold that suffocates him.

“What happened between you and Clarke?” Raven asks him one afternoon. “I thought things were finally _good_ between you.”

“So did I,” he sighs. And for weeks, they had been; ever since that night by the fire when they had sat wrapped in each other’s company, they had been taking slow, careful steps towards becoming _something_ , something more than what they’d already been.

Raven puts her hands on her hips and raises her eyebrow.

“Don’t give me that look,” he says defensively. “It wasn’t my fault. Clarke just—she needs space, sometimes.”

“She needs _you_ ,” Raven says firmly. “And you need her. Letting her run away from her demons isn’t going to help either of you heal.”

“What am I supposed to do? Force her into something she’s not ready for yet?”

Raven gives him a look that clearly says she thinks he’s an idiot. “How about you try _talking_ to her,” she says. “Be there for her, even when she’s afraid.”

“Okay,” he says, because Raven’s advice is usually sound.

He waits outside of medical until Clarke’s shift is done. When she sees him standing outside the door, she drops her eyes and tries to walk away; he puts a restraining hand on her arm.

“Clarke,” he says, “just—please. Talk to me.” When she says nothing, he takes a deep breath and adds, “Or at least listen to what I have to say.”

She still doesn’t say anything, but she doesn’t make any attempt to leave, even when he moves his hand from her arm.

“I know you’re afraid,” he says. “But we’ve all lost someone. People _die_ on the ground. That’s how things are down here.”

Still she says nothing, so he takes her hand in his and brings it up to his heart so she can feel the life pumping through his veins. “I’m alive,” he tells her. “Not in spite of you, Clarke, but _because_ of you. You don’t bring death, you bring _life_.”

Her gaze doesn’t leave the sight of their intertwined fingers resting on his shirt. “Everyone I love dies,” she says quietly. “My father, Wells, Finn, Lexa—”

“That’s not true. Your mother’s still here. Raven’s still here. _I’m_ still here. It’s not your love that kills people, Clarke.”

“I’m trying to believe that,” she whispers. “I’m trying, but it’s so hard.”

Unconsciously, his free hand rises to brush a strand of hair away from her face. She leans into his touch. “I know,” he murmurs. “I know it is. But I’ll be here for you every step of the way, in whatever capacity you need me. I won’t leave you, Clarke. I’m not going anywhere.”

For a long time, she’s silent. “Okay,” she says at last. “I believe you.” She raises her eyes to his face, tugging her lower lip between her teeth. The look in her eyes makes him catch his breath, not like he’s suffocating but like he’s forgotten how to breathe altogether.

The moment stretches between them, their faces separated by mere inches. He can’t bring himself to move, to pull away or lean closer, and questions flicker over her face as her eyes dart from his own to his lips and back again.

“Can I—” Her voice is hesitant, like she’s still trying to figure out what it is she wants. “Can I kiss you?”

He nods, his mouth too dry for words.

She leaves one hand over his heart and twines the other one in the collar of his shirt, pulling herself flush against him. Then she tilts her face towards his and their lips meet in a kiss that is chaste, soft, exploratory.

When she moves to pull away, he lets her go. “You okay?” he asks.

She nods. Her lips are parted, her eyes dazed; he feels like his are the same.

“Better than okay,” she says, before capturing his lips with hers again. The coal that’s buried beneath his heart bursts into flame.

The first time he tells her he loves her, it happens like this:

She has one hand pressed against his heartbeat, the other curled in the collar of his shirt, and he whispers it with every brush of his lips against hers.

_I love you. I won’t leave you. I love you_.

**Author's Note:**

> Talk to me on tumblr: forgivenessishardforus


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